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Update – The AMX Project
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Amx – Successor to the Skyhawk and Hunter?
A US Marine Corps General once stated solemnly during the dark days of Vietnam “we must stop sending twenty million dollar aeroplanes to blow up ten thousand dollar trucks!” Considering that during the Vietnam conflict the modern man, portable surface-to-air missile was still in its infancy then· the USMC General’s observations today are highly appropriate.
Italy in any future NATO/Warpac conflict would be hard-pressed to supply in-depth air support for its ground forces through its Tornado and F-104S squadrons and so operates the ageing Fiat G-91 as a mid-range light ground support machine. With most of the G-91s approaching their twenty-first birthday though, a successor had to be introduced that, while performing a similar mission profile, could combine the operational maintenance and improvements in systems reliability that had evolved since the fifties designed Fiat aircraft first became operational.
Thus was the gestation of AMX, a lightweight air combat fighter and ground support aircraft. Italy of course has a relatively large and diversified aerospace industry, in fact one of the best in Europe, being on a par with West Germany and only second to France and the United Kingdom. Aeritalia and Aer Macchi, two of Italy’s largest aerospace companies, combined in 1979 to formulate the AMX programme while in March of 1980 Embraer brought Brazil into the pact when that nation’s air force signed an order for an initial batch of 79 such aircraft.
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